Bucs assistant Kacy Rodgers.

For all but 4 of the 17 Bucs seasons Joe has been banging away on this here corner of the interwebs, Joe worn out multiple keyboards begging, pleading, screaming, praying, hollering for the Bucs to get an edge rusher.

Joe has an unshakeable belief, forged by watching decades of football, reading statistical data about football and speaking with Hall of Fame team-builders, that the absolute No. 1 most important position on defense is an edge rusher.

Hall of Fame personnel executive Gil Brandt often said only quarterback was a more important position for a team.

And now that the NFL is clearly a passing league, the value has only risen for a guy coming off the edge to bury a quarterback.

Everywhere, seemingly, than at One Buc Palace.

What was the hallmark of The Lost Decade? No edge rush. The one season the Bucs did have a dangerous edge rusher, the Bucs let the guy walk out the door for no good reason. And the team plummeted in the wins column, as did the defense.

Coincidence? Of course not.

There is no question that each of the Bucs’ Super Bowl-winning teams had a strong edge rush. Most champions do. For example, all four teams in the conference championship games last year had a good edge rusher.

But to hear folks from One Buc Palace, all of this intel — historical, statistical, practical — is all just a trivial coincidence.

The Bucs have a Lost Decade-level bad edge rush now. And the Bucs are 4-5 with a bad defense. Coincidence? Joe doesn’t believe in coincidences in football.

Today, defensive line coach/run game coordinator Kacy Rodgers fully admitted neither he nor the rest of the Bucs defensive coaches care about an edge rush, so long as someone puts a quarterback down.

Asked if he cared where a sack came from, Rodgers made it clear: No.

“The nature of our defense is we want to attack you from all different [angles],” Rodgers said. “We’re not sitting here saying, ‘Well, we need 10 from this guy.’ That’s never been our game.”

OK, Joe gets it in a general sense, a sack is a sack. Who cares where he is lined up?

Still, Joe is a history guy. Whenever the Bucs didn’t have an edge rush — no matter who the defensive coordinator was/is (or the head coach) — at best the Bucs were/are a .500-ish team.

The Bucs had a really good defense in the 1990s. But only when they acquired Simeon Rice did that defense become suffocating, legendary, historic.

What was the result? Super Bowl, baby. Boom, boom!

Four years ago the Bucs had a dangerous pincer attack with Jason Pierre-Paul and Shaq Barrett. How’d that work out?

Those guys helped the Bucs turn in one of the greatest defensive performances in Super Bowl history, sealing the Bucs’ second Vince Lombardi Trophy.

Coincidence? Hell, no!

If the Bucs had an edge rusher, imagine how the guy could only have to focus on attacking the quarterback and the Bucs wouldn’t have to blitz a linebacker or defensive back so often — leaving dudes running wide ass open down the middle of the defense week in and week out.

But no, let’s instead try to reinvent the wheel and have defensive tackles and outside linebackers pretend they are cornerbacks.

Joe is happy the defensive tackles, specifically, Vita Vea and Calijah Kancey, are starting to kick ass and bury quarterbacks. But just think how much better this defense would be if an edge rusher chased quarterbacks into Kancey’s lap more often, provided those same quarterbacks weren’t already beheaded by an edge rusher.

If the Bucs are satisfied with Lost Decade levels of edge rushing futility, don’t come whining about how the defense is underperforming.